Tag: spot.us

Spot.Us was a first in crowdfunded journalism in the United States. For the better part of a decade the project to pioneer community-powered reporting made storytelling and accountability reporting possible for communities in California and other parts of the United States. The end of the story for the storyteller-enabling platform was announced last month by […] more »

Circa is not my first tango with a startup. Even before Spot.Us, the startup I am perhaps still best known for, I have been part and parcel to various projects that were “starting up” even if their aim wasn’t to build a company (i.e., conference organizing or experiments that had sunset dates like Assignment Zero). […] more »

This came across my social media feed Thursday morning: “Google Unveils New Revenue Option for Web Publishers.” In short: It’s a simple technology where readers who come across a pay wall can opt into taking a survey instead of having to reach for their wallet. The survey then creates some funds for the publisher and […] more »

For this month’s Carnival of Journalism I am going to invoke the rule of “no apologies” and change the question a bit. Host Steve Outing asks: “What emerging technology or digital trend do you think will have a significant impact on journalism in the year or two ahead?” I don’t think it will be a […] more »

Spot.Us launched in November of 2008, making this our three-year anniversary. Counting the months of planning (and applying for the Knight News Challenge) that went into the launch, I’ve been working on Spot.Us, a journalism crowdfunding project, for almost four years. In that time, we’ve pushed boundaries, and have had many successes and shortcomings which […] more »

As the media industry continues to be upended and traditional publishers search for ways to survive, those of us who’ve chosen journalism as our craft are left wondering what the future holds. The Knight Foundation, as it happens, appears to be one of those entities exploring that very question. So it’s no wonder that many […] more »

At this year’s ONA conference, I’ll be on a panel called “I failed and so can you.” I’ve always been a big fan of failure. I think journalism should hold a “fail camp“ (inspired by Ethan Zuckerman). When I restarted the blog carnival, a site that I’ve organized where bloggers can convene to all write […] more »

PRX embarked on a local journalism experiment last fall with Louisville Public Media (LPM) and Spot.us with the support of the Knight News Challenge. We built a service that matches the pioneering crowdfunding work of Spot.us (itself a News Challenge grantee) with the public radio focus of PRX and LPM. The project is called Story […] more »

I often joke that an unexpected job duty of Spot.Us is that I’ve become an agent for freelancers. I like to pretend I’m a Jerry Maguire figure for small independent freelance reporters. They ask me to show them the money or sometimes they want a clip in a big publication. And sometimes at Spot.Us I’ve […] more »

From the launch of Spot.Us, I’ve always said the following: Anyone can tackle the crowdfunded journalism model. In fact, NPR could do it tomorrow and blow me out of the water. It’s just about being transparent and giving up control over how donation money gets spent. This model would have more success at the national […] more »